The captain approached the driver, a stocky, scar-faced corporal, and ordered him to approach the compound’s gate slowly. While the driver shifted gears, Boipelo sent the APC’s machine gunner aloft to man his weapon on their approach. A moment on the radio relayed similar orders to the second vehicle in line.
Boipelo dreaded meeting whoever might be in charge of the camp and its contraband stores, but he had no alternative. For the moment, at least, he had to follow orders from his superiors in Mogadishu.
But if the bandits should step out of line and threaten his men in some way…
Boipelo almost smiled at that.
And wondered if he might devise some way to help them step across that line.
“HAVE YOU CONSIDERED HOW we may destroy the tanks?” Mironov asked Bolan, when she judged they had a mile or less to go.
“If they’re standard,” he replied, “they’ll have 125 mm smoothbore cannons with the automatic loaders holding twenty-two rounds ready to fire. With any luck, they’ll have HEAT antitank rounds in the carousel, ready to rock and roll with a shot every four or five seconds. If we’re really lucky, I’ll find some Svir or Refleks anti-armor missiles waiting for a tryout.”
She understood what he was saying, but it took another moment to sink in.
“So, what? You plan to use one of the tanks against the others?”
“Unless you have a better idea,” he replied. “We don’t have a bazooka or mortar, and nothing we’re packing will put a dent in the T-90’s armor.”
“You know these tanks, I take it.”
“Just the basics,” Bolan said.
“I give you credit for audacity. But have you manned a tank before?”
“Not the T-90,” the Executioner said. “I’ve checked out on the T-72, which has the same cannon. I don’t plan on racing it around the track, but I’ll get by.”
“Assuming you can reach one of the tanks and get inside,” she said.
“Assuming that,” he granted.
“And, if not?”
Bolan shrugged. “I understand the cargo included a stockpile of RPG-29 rocket launchers. They’ve damaged M1A1 tanks in Iraq. If worse comes to worst, we can try our luck with those.”
“But you prefer the tank.”
“Big gun with armor all around,” he said. “What’s not to like?”
It nearly made her laugh, that almost childlike optimism coming from a warrior who she was certain had seen—and done—more than his share of killing. Mironov wondered if he was feigning confidence for her benefit, then decided it would not occur to him.
This soldier knew his capabilities, and he would do whatever might be necessary to fulfill his mission, without trying to impress or placate her.
When they were still a mile out from their destination, Mironov used her field glasses to find and scan the compound. It was not well-lit, which she supposed would work to their advantage, but she saw enough to know they’d found the tanks. Some of the other hardware might have been dispersed, but she suspected most of it was still in place.
But in the end, it was the tanks that mattered most.
“We’ve found them,” she announced, and handed the binoculars to Bolan.
He spent a moment studying the camp, then handed back the glasses as he said, “Let’s take a closer look.”
Mironov wasn’t sure how she’d expected the big American to react, possibly some small expression of relief that they had not wasted their time driving to Merca on what the Americans referred to as a wild-goose chase.
But no.
He derived no pleasure from his work, as far as she could tell, unless there was a sense of satisfaction for a job well done, when he was finished.
Or, perhaps, merely relief that he’d survived?
Mironov had been eager and enthusiastic in her early days, but cynicism had devoured most of her youthful sense that she was serving some great cause. She now believed most nations were alike, striking self-righteous poses for the media and their constituents, while playing power games that served the wealthy first and left the crumbs for those who cleaned up afterward.
This night she would be cleaning up another rich man’s mess. Assuming that she wasn’t killed, the next day or the one after, she’d be asked to do the same again.
Mironov shook her head, shrugged off the weary sense of resignation that enveloped her and followed the man who called himself Cooper through the darkness toward their target.
BOLAN SAW THE MILITARY VEHICLES arrive when they were still a half mile out. Flags painted on their dusty sides, green armbands on the gunners he could see.
That made them AMISOM, and Bolan had to wonder what they were doing outside a bandit camp filled with hijacked vehicles and weapons that were banned by law in Somalia. He waited, watching through Mironov’s binoculars while someone from the home team came to speak with the patrol’s commander through chain-link fencing, nodding now and then at whatever he was hearing from the peacekeeper.
Finally, the APCs pulled out and continued on their way—but how far were they going? Their near-friendly reception at Guleed’s illicit arms depot told Bolan that he couldn’t trust the AMISOM detachment to address even the most glaring violations of law. They might intervene, though, when Bolan’s team began its move against the camp.
In which case, he would deal with them if the time came.
Bolan’s self-imposed ban on harming police officers had never extended to members of any armed forces. It was an arbitrary rule that could be argued back and forth on principle, but Bolan held himself accountable to living by it.
Cops, regardless of their nationality, swore oaths to uphold and enforce the law. Bolan viewed most law-enforcement officers as soldiers of the same side, even when his tactics went above the law. He believed their daily sacrifices bought some slack for the few bad apples.
Bolan wouldn’t drop the hammer on a cop. Case closed.
But soldiers were another story altogether. They signed up to serve specific countries, parties, or causes, surrendered free will to leaders who were frequently corrupt, repressive, or even deranged, and their oath to a flag did not absolve them of responsibility for any crimes they might commit.
At least, not in Mack Bolan’s eyes.
The crimes of soldiers, even when committed with the best intentions from a skewed and twisted point of view, transcended petty graft and the transgressions of police. When soldiers sinned en masse, they were inclined toward crimes against humanity itself, as seen in recent years from Sarajevo to Darfur.
And Bolan wouldn’t close his eyes to that.
He wouldn’t give the AMISOM soldiers a pass if they chose to defend Guleed’s illegal hijacking and sale of tanks, rocket launchers and other tools of destruction. There was a price to pay for being on the wrong side in the war between civilization and savagery.
That price was death.
And the Executioner was ready to pick up the tab.
12
The Black Hawk’s swift descent made Guleed’s toes curl inside his spit-shined boots. That shine would be wasted as soon as he stepped from the chopper, but what of it? It had not been his spit or his sweat that had made the boots shine like dark mirrors.
It was good to have flunkies, he thought. And power. And money.
And guns.
This night, his instinct told him that the guns might be his most important asset.
One of his minor lieutenants, a man named Isniino Warfaa Looyann, was waiting with his head bowed, eyes slitted against the swirl of grit, when Guleed disembarked. The Mil Mi-8 was coming in, by then, and the combined roar of the helicopter engines rendered conversation physically impossible.
They moved toward the camp’s command post, Guleed leaving Faadumo Khalid to organize and distribute the airlifted troops. It was a relatively simple task, and would allow Guleed to further judge Khalid’s ability before the young man found himself commanding soldiers in a life-or-death confrontation.
When he could
hear himself think, Guleed asked Looyaan, “Have the AMISOM troops been here?”
“They have, sir. I spoke to their leader, a captain. His men are patrolling the highway.”
“How many are with him?”
“Two armored vehicles,” Looyaan said. “Perhaps twenty-five, sir.”
“He left none in camp?” Guleed asked.
“No, sir.”
Guleed considered phoning Dualeh Awrala and having him crack the whip with AMISOM, but he decided not to press his luck. It was no small concession to have those soldiers watching out for attackers along the highway, when by rights they should have been storming the compound, to seize Guleed’s contraband weapons.
“What of our customers, then?” he inquired.
“I expect them shortly, sir. The ONLF group has called ahead. They should be here within a half hour, at most, unless the soldiers stop them.”
“Those are not their orders,” Guleed said. “Was there no call from the Eritreans?”
“No, sir. Not yet.”
Guleed hoped that the front men from the Eritrean Islamic Salvation Movement had not backed out of the auction without telling him. Bidding by hostile adversaries would increase his profit margin, and anything that put money in Guleed’s bank account made him happy.
If all went well, he expected to be ecstatic.
And if anything went wrong, well, he would wash his hands in the blood of his enemies.
In fact, it would be a pleasure.
“When our customers arrive,” he told Looyaan, “they must be supervised at all times.”
“Shall I search them?”
“No. We should expect them to be armed. But allow no physical hostilities between the groups, and if any of them draws a weapon, kill him on the spot.”
“Yes, sir!”
“As for the refreshments,” Guleed said, “offer no alcohol to the Eritreans. Let the Ethiopians decide for themselves.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Have you prepared the demonstrations?”
“Yes, sir. Two weapons from each category, except for the Strela-2 missiles, as you instructed.”
The Strelas were too valuable to waste on test firings. As for the rest, Guleed could spare a little stolen ammunition to secure a sale.
“And the tanks?” he inquired.
“All fueled and ready to go, sir. They came fully loaded, as you are aware. We’ve done nothing to change that.”
Guleed was prepared to let his customers drive one of the T-90 tanks, assuming that any of them were qualified to do so without wrecking the vehicle or trashing his camp. He hadn’t made up his mind, yet, concerning test fires of the 125 mm cannon, but was leaning toward refusal, since AMISOM troops were in the neighborhood.
Enough to get the money in his pocket, and no more. If any of Guleed’s potential customers took umbrage at his rules, they were free to go home empty-handed.
Assuming they ever left Merca alive.
BOLAN WATCHED THE CHOPPERS land. One Russian, one American. He counted heads and weapons as the occupants unloaded, milling about in confusion until one of their number took charge and shouted them into a semblance of order. Bolan marked the drill sergeant, along with the bandit in charge of the compound. No one else spoke directly to Guleed.
“The men in charge,” Mironov whispered from beside him. “When they’re gone, the others will become disorganized.”
He nodded, thinking to himself that they would still be deadly. Any killer with a weapon in his hands was dangerous, whether or not he had someone giving him orders. Truth be told, in killing situations the disorganized combatants could be worse than those who followed strategy dictated from above.
A well-armed killer, cut adrift, might turn up anywhere, at any moment, raising any kind of bloody hell that suited him. He had no plan beyond survival and destruction of his enemies. Sometimes, in cases where fanaticism ruled, even survival instincts took a holiday.
Bolan and his companions lay in darkness, thirty yards outside the chain-link fence that ringed Guleed’s compound. Three rounds from the Executioner’s Steyr would have left Guleed’s guerrillas leaderless, but Bolan’s team would still be on the outside, looking in. The tanks and other hot hardware would still be out of reach.
And then, what?
Nothing.
They had to get inside the wire, or else the mission was a wasted exercise.
Cutting the fence shouldn’t be a problem. Bolan had snagged a pair of wire cutters and other penetration gear as they had left Mogadishu, counting on Guleed to throw some obstacles across their path. The other tools included rope, crowbars, a hatchet and a folding shovel. None of them was any value to him now, but if he’d needed one of them and failed to bring it, the resultant failure would have rested squarely on his shoulders.
Be prepared.
It wasn’t just a Boy Scout motto.
“We can cut the wire and slip inside,” Mironov said. “Somewhere behind the tanks.”
Guleed’s on-site commander had been cagey when he ranged the big T-90s up against the fence, dispersing them somewhat to minimize the risk of sabotage. An RPG could still reach any tank inside the camp, but it would only damage one or two per shot. And by the time a shooter on the outside could reload his launcher, some of those inside the wire would have a fix on his position from the RPG’s distinctive back blast.
“It works for me,” Bolan replied. “But what we really need is a diversion.”
“Coming up,” Mironov said, smiling as headlights burned a tunnel through the night, approaching from the south.
More company, Bolan thought. It could only boost the odds against them, but he had to work with the available material and circumstances. If the reinforcements managed to distract Guleed’s watchmen, he would accept that gift with gratitude.
“We need to see what’s happening before we move,” he said. “Be ready on my call.”
A SENSE OF APPREHENSION overtook Dahnay Zenawi as his Range Rover approached the compound gates. Beside him in the vehicle’s backseat, Hakim Sehul craned forward, peering through the windshield toward the tall fence topped by razor wire, and the gunmen ranged behind the gates.
“I still think it could be a trap,” Sehul declared.
“Why not detain us at the border, then?” Zenawi asked.
“Or ambush us somewhere along the road from Dolo Bay? Why use outlaws to spring the trap?”
“Deniability,” Sehul replied, still peering anxiously through the windshield.
It was Sehul’s job to worry, as security chief of the Ogaden National Liberation Front and Zenawi’s personal bodyguard for this rare excursion outside Ethiopia. If anything went wrong, Sehul would shoulder the blame.
Of course, he would also be dead.
The ONLF was a separatist group that demanded independence for Ogaden, the easternmost of Ethiopia’s nine ethnic regions, also known as Western Somalia. Most of Ogaden’s inhabitants were Muslim Somalis, and the ONLF claimed that Ethiopia had occupied the district illegally. In fact, a majority of Ethiopian Somalis cast their lot with the Somali Peoples Democratic Party, while the ONLF drew its membership primarily from the Ogaden clan, largest subgroup of northern Somalia’s Darod clan. Within the Horn of Africa, the Ogaden were known as “the poetical clan with a million heroes,” for their pursuit of quixotic causes.
But revolution was a deadly serious profession for Zenawi and the men who followed him. They had accomplished little with their claims of independence, so far, but that would change if they had a substantial army, equipped for all-out combat.
And what better way to begin than with a fleet of battle tanks?
The price would be high, Zenawi realized, but he could raise the money through time-honored means. Kidnapping for ransom was always dependable, as was armed robbery. The market for illegal drugs inside Ethiopia was relatively small, but khat plantations were expanding, and the ONLF claimed a percentage of every narcotics shipment passing through its territory, ear
marked for sale to addicts in Europe and North America.
Money was not the problem. Zenawi’s difficulty, until now, had been locating sources for serious hardware—sources who didn’t mind dealing with little-known rebels trapped in an African backwater.
There would be competition, certainly. But Zenawi was prepared for it. If he could not negotiate a reasonable price, he might be able to discourage rivals who desired the merchandise. He often found a bullet in the head to be most persuasive, and while he supposed Guleed would frown upon him killing off the other bidders, there were alternate ways to clear the field.
It all depended on the source of competition, the identity of those who bid against him. Any weakness that Zenawi could discover was exploitable. His reach was longer than most adversaries knew—at least, until it was too late.
The gate was opening, Guleed’s men drawing back to let the Range Rover enter the compound. If Sehul was right, and this was some elaborate deception, then Zenawi would be dead or shackled within moments.
But if Zenawi was correct, then he could see the turning point in his long war from where he sat. And he could see beyond it, to a day when he would rule Ogaden, either personally or through handpicked representatives.
Why not, when he had fought so long and hard for his homeland and people? Even if most of them did not recognize his sacrifice, much less pay homage to him, they would learn. Reeducation of the masses was a sacred trust.
Zenawi smiled as the tall gates swung shut behind his vehicle.
“MORE COMPANY,” MIRONOV SAID, eyes tracking northbound headlights on the road from Merca.
Bolan watched the lone vehicle drawing closer and remarked, “The more, the merrier.”
“You think so?”
“Absolutely,” he replied. “The last bunch in were customers. If this is competition coming, then Guleed will be distracted by the bidding. One more thing to take his mind off of security.”
“He has subordinates for that,” Mironov said.
Threat Factor Page 13